12 March, 2014

A Hindu saint who was visiting river Ganges to take bath found a group of
family members on the banks, shouting in anger at each other. He turned to his
disciples smiled ‘and asked. ‘Why do people shout in anger at each other?’

Disciples thought for a while, one of them said, ‘Because we lose our calm, we
shout.’ ‘But, why should you shout when the other person is just next to you?
You can as well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner.’ asked the
saint.

Disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the other disciples.
Finally the saint explained, . ‘When two people are angry at each other, their
hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to
hear each other.

The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other
to cover that great distance.

What happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but
talk softly, Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is
either nonexistent or very small…’ The saint continued, ‘When they love each
other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper ‘n they get even
closer to each other in their love.

Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other ‘and that’s
all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.’

He looked at his disciples ‘and said. ‘So when you argue do not let your hearts
get distant, Do not say words that distance each other more, Or else there will
come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to
return.’

He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its
body through that little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making any progress.

It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly.

He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small,
shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any
moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body,
which would contract in time. Neither happened!

In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a
swollen body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly.

What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the
restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through
the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly
into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its
freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our
lives.

If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would
cripple us.

We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly !!!

Lessons to be learnt : When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Nothing
in life is always smooth-sailing nor goes according to plan, hardships are
there to mould us into stronger individuals. Life is constantly about
overcoming challenges, it's only through tough times that we became more.

- God answered: Those things were not yours they belonged to the earth. - Is it
my memories? The man asked.

- God answered: those never belonged to you they belonged to Time - Is it my
talents?

- God answered: those were never yours they belonged to the circumstances. - Is
it my friends and family?

- God answered: I'm sorry they were never yours they belonged to the path. - Is
it my wife and son?

- God answered: They were never yours the belonged to your heart. - Is it my
body?

- God answered: that was never yours it belonged to the dust. - Is it my soul?

- God answered: No that is mine. Full of fear, the man took the suitcase from
god and opened it just to find out the suitcase was empty. - With a tear coming
down his cheek the man said: I never had anything???

- God answered: that is correct, every moment you lived were only for yours.
You never lived for somebody who is not related to you in any way.

Moral: Do something for other people who cant return the favour back to you.
Life is just a moment. A moment that belongs to you. - Live Now - Live your
life - Don't forget to be happy and make others happy, as that is the only
thing that matters. - Material things and everything else that you fought for
stay here. - YOU CAN'T TAKE ANYTHING.

A man’s daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father.

When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped
up on two pillows.

An empty chair sat beside his bed. The minister assumed that the old fellow had
been informed of his visit. “I guess you were expecting me,” he said. ‘No, who
are you?” said the father.

The minister told him his name and then remarked, “I saw the empty chair and I
figured you knew I was going to show up.”

“Oh yeah, the chair,” said the bedridden man. “Would you mind closing the
door?” Puzzled, the minister shut the door.

“I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter,” said the man.

“But all of my life I have never known how to pray.” “At church I used to hear
the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head.”

“I abandoned any attempt at prayer,” the old man continued, “until one day four
years ago, my best friend said to me, “Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter
of having a conversation with God.”

“Here is what I suggest,” he said. “Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair
in front of you, and in faith see God on the chair.

It’s not spooky because he promised, ‘I will be with you always’.”
“Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now.”

“So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every
day. I’m careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd
either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm.”

The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to
continue on the journey.

Then he prayed with him, anointed him with oil, and then returned to the
church.

Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her daddy had
died that afternoon.

Did he die in peace?” he asked.

Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, he called me over to his bedside,
told me how much he loved me, and kissed me on the cheek.
When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead.
There was something strange about his death.

Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the
chair beside the bed.

What do you make of that?”

The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, “I wish we could all go like
that.”

Having restrained them all, he should sit
steadfast, intent on Me; his wisdom is steady whose sense are under control.

EXPLANATION : Since the sense organs are thus the
saboteurs in the kingdom of the spirit who bring the disastrous downfall of the
empire of the soul, Arjuna is warned here that as a seeker of Self-perfection
he should constantly struggle to control all his sense organs and their mad
lustful wanderings in their respective fields. Modern psychology certainly
would look down with a protruding squint eye upon this Geeta theory because,
according to Freud and others, sensuousness is instinctive in man and to curb
it is to suppress the sensuousness in man.

According to the West, to control is to suppress,
and on science of mental life can accept that suppression is psychologically
healthy. But the Vedic theory is not pointing to any mental suppression at all
they are only advising an inward blossoming, an inner growth and development,
by which its earlier fields of enjoyments through the senses drop out of the
fuller grown man who has come to the perception of a newer field of ampler joys
and more satisfying bliss.

The idea is very well brought out here in the
stanza when Lord Krishna, as though in the very same breath, repeats both the
negative and the positive aspects of the technique of self-development. He
advises not only a withdrawal from the unhealthy gutters of sensuousness but
also gives the healthy method of doing so by explaining to us the positive
technique in Self-perfection. Through a constant attempt at focusing our
attention "One me, the Supreme," he advises the disciples to sit
steady.

In this simple-looking statement of half-a-stanza,
Geeta explains the entire technique of Self-development. Immortal impulses and
unethical instincts that bring own a man to the level of a mere brute are the
result of endless lives spent among sensuous objects during the infinite number
of different manifestations through which the embodied soul--the ego--in each
one of us had previously passed. The thick coating of mental impressions that
we gathered thus in our pilgrimage is humanly impossible for one solitary
individual to erase or transcend in one's own little lifetime. Naturally, this
is the despair of all the promoters of ethics, the teachers of morality and the
masters of spirituality. The rishis of old, in vivid experience, have
discovered for themselves a technique by which all these mental tendencies can
be eradicated. To expose the mind to the quite atmosphere of meditation upon
the All-perfect Being is to heal the mind of its ulcers. By this process, he
who has come to gain a complete mastery over his sense organs is called the one
who is `steadfast in wisdom'.

The concealed suggestion in the stanza is quite
obvious: nobody who with excessive force controls his indriyas by the sheer
strength of his will and sense of abstinence has any chance of flowering
himself into full-blown spiritual beauty. When the sense organs have, of their
own accord, come back tamely to lie surrendered at the feet of one who has come
to rediscover the Infinite Perfection in himself, he is called `a Man of
Perfection'. Neither has he ruined his instruments of cognition nor has he
closed down the arches of knowledge in him. A Perfect One is he whose sway over
the animal in him is so complete that the inner Satan has become, for the sage
in him, a tame cannibal to run errands and serve him faithfully.

One of my fondest memories as a
child is going by the river and sitting idly on the bank. There I would enjoy
the peace and quiet, watch the water rush downstream, and listen to the chirps
of birds and the rustling of leaves in the trees.

I would also watch the bamboo
trees bend under pressure from the wind and watch them return gracefully to
their upright or original position after the wind had died down.

When I think about the bamboo
tree’s ability to bounce back or return to its original position, the word
resilience comes to mind. When used in reference to a person this word means
the ability to readily recover from shock, depression or any other situation
that stretches the limits of a person’s emotions.

Have you ever felt like you are
about to snap Have you ever felt like you are at your breaking point
Thankfully, you have survived the experience to live to talk about it. During
the experience you probably felt a mix of emotions that threatened your health.
You felt emotionally drained, mentally exhausted and you most likely endured
unpleasant physical symptoms.

Life is a mixture of good times
and bad times, happy moments and unhappy moments. The next time you are
experiencing one of those bad times or unhappy moments that take you close to
your breaking point then bend but don’t break. Try your best not to let the
situation get the best of you.

A measure of hope will take you
through the unpleasant ordeal. With hope for a better tomorrow or a better
situation, things may not be as bad as they seem to be. The unpleasant ordeal
may be easier to deal with if the end result is worth having.

If the going gets tough and you
are at your breaking point, show resilience like the bamboo tree, bend, but
don’t break!